Our Training Program in Pulmonary Disease provides comprehensive research training for individuals with a serious commitment to a career in lung biology and biomedical research, particularly as it interfaces with clinical pulmonary medicine. Our primary premise has long been that lung diseases represent major health problems in the U.S. and that progress toward improved understanding of the pathobiology of these diseases are required to make progress toward treatment and prevention. The program has a long history, training numerous physicians and scientists who have subscribed to this mission. The program is under new leadership and strives to maintain the previous scientific and training success, while adapting the next generation of researchers to new basic and clinical science knowledge and technology. Recent changes have included expanded resources (space and faculty - including 6 Ph.D. scientists). This has allowed us to broaden the scope of research questions related to lung biology, and attack the problems at the most basic and translational levels incorporating new cores in the Lung Biology Center and Harvard Medical Center. We have also enhanced our didactic program and further solidified program organization for oversight and mentoring of trainees. We identify trainees with a demonstrated interest in a research career. We also identify an environment where these individuals can pursue a problem of interest and in which creative and solid thinking combined with state-of-the-art technology is being used to pursue the problem, and provide them with the tools and mind-set to attack other problems in the future. Finally, we provide a prolonged period of support (3-5 years) so that trainees are prepared ultimately to become a productive independent investigator, and the next leaders in pulmonary academics. This has resulted in our 46 trainees publishing 332 manuscripts over the past decade, and of the 37 trainees who have completed the program, 33 have obtained grant awards. Importantly, 62% of our trainees spend over 50% if their time doing research, and only one trainee (3%) in the past decade is now in private practice. (END OF ABSTRACT)